A Little Intel On Daredevil Ratings

According to a report at Variety , Daredevil may have garnered over 4.4 million viewers in the first 11 days after its premiere…and that’s only analyzing viewers on tablets and phones. The actual numbers, which would include viewers that watched the show on actual televisions, via gaming consoles, smart tv’s, DVD and bluray players, etc., may be much, much higher. If the figures are true, then Daredevil ranks highest among Netflix originals for overall viewership in the opening salvo of release, as well as highest as a per cent of overall subscriber base.

Streaming giant Netflix has always declined to publish ratings of its original content…After all, if there are no advertisers, why should they risk misinterpretation of the figures by shareholders and the media? Nevertheless, the estimated viewership, extrapolated by San Diego-based Luth Research’s analysis of the viewing habits of 2500 Netflix subscribers nation-wide, give us some indication of the power of the show. 4.4 million viewers would be a great week for national broadcaster CW’s Arrow, for example, and the viewers of Arrow don’t represent $10 in monthly fees a piece (give or take). I don’t want to guess as to the numbers that watched on an actual tv, but considering that no Playstations, X-boxes, AppleTV’s, Roku’s, Chromecasts, etc. are represented in those figures, nor any smart tv’s or set-tops, I have a mind to say it ranks with just about any series drama out there. That means good things with regard to series budgets for Marvel/Netflix ventures going forward, and that should pay dividends for viewers in terms of quality AND quantity.